England will take on hosts Canada next in the quarter-finals of the 2015 World Cup.(AFP)

England have booked their place in the quarter-finals of the 2015 Women's World Cup after recording a hard-fought 2-1 victory over Norway at Lansdowne Stadium in Ottawa on 22 June.

Trailing by a goal to nil after 54 minutes thanks to Solveig Gulbrandsen's opener, England fought back impressively and levelled the score shortly after the hour mark courtesy of a header from captain Steph Houghton.

England's first-ever Women's World Cup knockout victory was then confirmed in style as a quite brilliant long-range strike from Manchester City defender Lucy Bronze proved too difficult for Ingrid Hjelmseth to handle.

"The first emotion is really a sense of pride," coach Mark Sampson was quoted as saying by The Guardian after the win. "To show the character and resilience to come back from a goal down is incredible.

"Let's not forget the environmental conditions, the weather was pretty warm. The players were immense to overcome everything and come back. Big credit to Norway for the first half though. We were reasonably fortunate to come in 0-0 at half-time but in the second half our performance was far better, we managed to change the game from the bench and in the end we were deserved winners."

On her excellent winner, Bronze told BBC Sport: "Normally I'd pass, but in training people have said 'why don't you shoot when you're on the edge of the box? Shoot, shoot, you're always there'. So in my head I thought 'I'm going to shoot'.

"I guess scoring the goal is a bit of history but it was a team effort and it was a very tough game to play in. I'm ecstatic that we've won."

England will face Canada in the last eight on 28 June. The hosts advanced after Josee Belanger's second-half goal saw off the challenge of Switzerland at BC Place in Vancouver.

In the evening's other round of 16 tie, the United States were below par but secured their place in the quarters with a 2-0 triumph over Colombia, with the latter seeing goalkeeper Catalina Perez sent off. Alex Morgan netted their first, while Abby Wambach had earlier missed a penalty. Carli Lloyd made no mistake from 12 yards after Megan Rapinoe was fouled.

The full quarter-final lineup will be confirmed later this week with Japan still to play the Netherlands and Germany going up against European rivals France.